Like A Frog Jumps, Sorta

Swimming last evening, without warming up, I stupidly thought it a good idea to see how many times, under water, I could traverse my pool's length without surfacing. Key to each "lap" was the initial powerful "push off", where I'd get as close as possible underwater to the wall, and Push as hard as I could, perpendicular to the wall, to go the first 10 to 15 feet without having to use any upper body strength. (Similar to the Scientific Amphibian diagram, with theta = zero)

Well, when my left leg extended, at the end of the 2nd push off stroke, when the pool wall receded behind me and my leg became straight... ouch. Giant Ouch. I think I have a series of hyper-extension induced tears around the pica synovialis mediopatelaris. In compression, my left knee works just fine. In minor torsional loads and rotation it appears to work normally. When extended, without any weight on it whatsoever, the bright lights and stars I see from the intense shooting pain are lovely at first, but get old after about 1/2 a second, and the cortisol levels they pump into my blood stream are not good for extended exposure in humans. Naproxin sodium is helping. Standing at the sink long enough to shave this morning caused 'intense discomfort' in my left knee, and now it appears to be radiating heat as I sit in my office. Hmm.

I REALLY hope I don't need to see an orthopedist, who'll wanna do an MRI on my knee after an interminably long waiting room episode... ugh. A week from now, I hope to be fully ambulatory once again. Il faut voir (lol, frog reference full circle!). Slow and steady... and don't forget to proactively stretch next time!